Leksikale mv.:

Nekrologer/Obituares etc:

At the interstices of race, class and imperialism: A. Sivanandan (1923-2018). By B. Skanthakumar (Socialist Project; The Bullet, February 8, 2018). “His investigations of the political-economy of racism – the racism that kills, more than the racism that discriminates – informed a generation of social workers, school-teachers, university students and lecturers, and campaigners for self-defence of black communities.”

Ambalavaner Sivanandan, 1923-2018. By Ken Olende (Socialist Review, Issue 432, February 2018). “Sivanandan talked and wrote on all aspects of racism in an anti-imperialist, Marxist framework.”

Ambalavaner Sivanandan obituary. By Gary Younge (The Guardian, 7 February 2017). “Director of the Institute of Race Relations who helped change the way Britain thought about race.”

Obituary: A Sivanandan (1923-2018). By Dominic Alexander (Counterfire, January 4, 2018). “Siva’s understanding of race, class and imperialism, and of humanity in general, will continue to inspire resistance to injustice and hope for socialism.”

Sivanandan’s socialism. By Yasmin Khan and G. R. McColl (The League for Fifth International, 4 May 1994). “His writings have shaped the outlook of a whole layer of black activists. A revolutionary socialist critique of Sivanandan’s ideas, and the strategy which ﬂows from them, is therefore long overdue.”

All that melts into air is solid (Verso, Blog, 13 July 2017). “In this two-part essay, A. Sivanandan critiques the New Times current developed within Marxism Today, and its influence on the rhetoric of Labour in the 1990s”. The essay was first published in Race & Class (Vol.31, No.3, 1989).

Rosie the Riveter is a bogus icon of female empowerment: ‘We Can Do It!’ but what is ‘it?’. By Stephanie Buck (Timeline, April 23, 2017). “The irony being that, whereas Rosie the Riveter today might stand for a woman’s general right to choose, the poster’s first application implied she did not.”

Militarism: Revolutionary mothering and Rosie the Riveter. By Judith Deutsch (Socialist Project/The Bullet, March 1, 2017). “A Black Rosie the Riveter was featured on the cover of the New Yorker magazine. The original picture of white Rosie frequently appears as an image of women’s equality as a laborer.”

Rosie the Riveter is an emblem of capitalism. By Helen Razer (The Guardian, 6 June 2013). “Rosie the Riveter has been appropriated to sell mops. The left is quick to be offended, but it should see Rosie for what she is.”

Myth-Making and the “We Can Do It!” Poster. By Gwen Sharp (The Society Pages/Sociological Images, January 4, 2011). “The image is widely seen as a symbol of women’s empowerment and a sign of major gender transformations that occurred during the 1940s.”

Reimagining Strength and Femininity: A Visual Analysis of the Iconic “We Can Do It!” Image. March 21, 2017 Curtis Newbold. Source: https://timeline.com/rosie-riveter-feminist-icon-579cfeb56e1a

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018). By Neal Ó Riain (Jacobin: Reason in Revolt, March 19, 2018). “Throughout his life he used this platform to popularize science but he never shied away from the political, a passion he inherited from his mother, who he described as a ‘free-thinking radical’.”

Cosmologist Stephen Hawking dies at 76. By Bryan Dyne (World Socialist Web Site, 15 March 2018). “Hawking never wavered on his materialist conception of the Universe. Even as his health deteriorated, his deep understanding of the laws of motion that govern matter on cosmological scales led him to reject religion and mysticism as a way of understanding the world.”

A brief history of Stephen Hawking: A legacy of paradox. By Stuart Clark (New Scientist, 14 March 2018). “The most recognisable scientist of our age, Hawking holds an iconic status. His genre-defining book, A Brief History of Time, has sold more than 10 million copies since its publication in 1988, and has been translated into more than 35 languages.”

Revolution in science. By Duncan Blackie (International Socialism, Issue 42, Spring 1989, p.115–136). Review of Stephen W. Hawking, A Brief History of Time, from the big bang to black holes (Bantam Press, 1988). “Hawking’s book is an astonishing case in point. It’s grasp of a partial (although admittedly very sophisticated) understanding of nature makes for a very inspiring read. Yet his understanding remains partial, for it carries all the baggage of bourgeois thought along with it.”

Links:

I am Queen Mary (site). “… at Prizm Art Fair 2017 LaVaughn Belle and Jeannette Ehlers present their project ‘I Am Queen Mary’, a collaborative public art project that creates a monument in the city of Copenhagen that challenges the narratives around the Danish colonial history.” Bl.a. 1 times video-præsentation.

A human, not a myth. By Sean Jacobs (Jacobin: Reason in Revolt, 14 April 2018). “We should resist constructing self-serving myths about political figures — even someone as heroic as Winnie Mandela.”

Winifred Madikizela-Mandela: The incarnation of the black spirit and black pride. By Thato Mmereki (Pambazuka News, April 6, 2018). “Winnie Mandela is the incarnation of black spirit and pride. She was the incarnation of the struggle of oppressed black South African under the apartheid regime. She is truly an inspiration to the younger generation.”

Winnie Nomzamo Madikizela-Mandela 1936-2018. By Charlie Kimber (Socialist Worker, Issue 2599, 4 April 2018). “Winnie Nomzamo Madikizela-Mandela represented some of the most courageous elements of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, but also its weaknesses.”

Winnie Mandela (1936-2018). By Sisonke Msimang (Jacobin: Reason in Revolt, 4 April 2018). “Through her fearlessness and charisma, Winnie Mandela came to be seen by the people of South Africa’s townships as the Mother of the Nation.””

Winnie Mandela was a hero: If she’d been white, there would be no debate. By Afua Hirsch (The Guardian, 3 April 2018). “Peaceful protest did not end apartheid: it took revolutionaries. And it shouldn’t be difficult to choose between a system of racial supremacy and a person who helped overthrow it.”

Israel’s mask slips off. By David Palumbo-Liu (Jacobin, 31 July 2018). “With its passage of the ‘Jewish Nation-State Law’, Israel is no longer hiding the fact that it is not a democracy.”

Jewish Nation-State Law: Why Israel was never a democracy. By Ramzy Baroud (Counterpunch, July 26, 2018). “Israel has made its choice and it is, unmistakably, the wrong one. The rest of the world must now make its choice as well … against Israeli Jewish Apartheid and for Palestinian rights.”

Israel’s Nation-State Law and the dead end of Zionism. By Barry Grey (World Socialist Web Site, 21 July 2018). “The passage on Thursday by the Israeli Knesset of the ‘Nation-State Law’ enshrining Jewish supremacy as the legal foundation of the state marks a new stage in the crisis wracking Israel.”

Clarity as to the reality. By Tony Greenstein (Weekly Worker, Issue 1212, 19 July 2018).
“The open racism of Netanyahu is preferable to the platitudes of liberal Zionism.”

Israel passes law entrenching apartheid. By Tamara Nassar (The Electronic Intifada, 19 July 2018). “Israel’s parliament voted early Thursday to further entrench Jewish supremacy and racial discrimination against Palestinians in its constitutional law.”

Aretha Franklin: preaching the gospel of liberation. By Yuri Prasad (Socialist Worker, Issue 2080, 4 December 2007). “A new collection of rare and previously unreleased recordings by Aretha Franklin are a powerful reminder of how she transformed popular music.”

Respect, Franklin’s signature song: “… Franklin reworked and rearranged the song, transforming it into a kind of working-class woman’s answer to the original. Over its taunting guitar licks and irresistible groove, Franklin’s trumpeting voice belted out the lyrics like someone who had long grown tired of remaining quiet. She wasn’t asking for respect so much as she was demanding it, and she literally spelled it out for anyone having trouble getting her point …” (Text from the World Socialist Web Site article above).

How the right won in Brazil (Socialist Review, Issue 441, December 2018). “The victory of Jair Bolsonaro in the presidential election was a shock felt the world over. Jorge Almeida discusses the crises which led to this point.

Bolsonaro elected president of Brazil: how did we get to this point? By Marcelo Badaró Mattos (RS21: Revolutionary Socialism in the 21st Century, 5 November 2018). “In this article, however, the intention is not to predict the future. Instead, this will be an attempt to analyse the historical path that has brought us to the current situation.”

Has Brazil fallen to fascism? By Alistair Farrow (Socialist Worker, Issue 2629, 4 November 2018). “The debate about whether Bolsonaro is a fascist matters because it determines how the left and others should respond to the new government.”

Trump in the tropics: Bolsonaro takes power in Brazil (Counterfire, November 2, 2018). “Michael Roberts explains how Bolsonaro won the Brazilian presidential election and what capitalism’s response is.”

How did a monster come to power in Brazil? By Todd Chretien (SocialistWorker.org, October 30, 2018). “Having clawed to power on the back of the military and security forces, Bolsonaro now proposes a dangerous lurch to the authoritarian right, pledging to wipe the PT from Brazil’s political map.”

Weathering the storm (RS21: Revolutionary Socialism in the 21st Century, 30 October 2018). “Reflections on the election of the far-right Jair Bolsonaro as president of Brazil by Max Leak, who spent Election Day (28 October 2018) with anti-fascists and feminists outside the Brazilian Embassy in London.”

A dark hour in Brazil. By Gianpaolo Baiocchi and Marcelo K. Silva (Nacla, October 29, 2018). “Jair Bolsonaro has propelled anger and vitriol against the Left, the poor, and so-called identity politics to the surface of Brazilian society. After his win, what’s next?”

Brazil: how could a far-right demagogue win the election? By Jorge Martin (In Defence of Marxism, 29 October 2018). “This result is a setback for the working class and the poor. We need to understand what it means, what led to this situation and what strategy the workers’ movement should follow, faced with this reactionary government.”

Here’s what Jair Bolsonaro thinks. By Sean Purdy (Jacobin, October 28, 2018). “Brazil has a fascist presidential frontrunner. Here are 20 of Jair Bolsonaro’s most racist and reactionary statements.”

Bolsonaro’s most dangerous supporters. By Aldo Cordeiro Sauda and Benjamin Fogel (International Viewpoint, October 27, 2018). “Establishment outlets like the Economist insist the Brazilian military is a moderating influence on the far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro. But precisely the opposite is true.” På dansk: Brasilien: Bolsonaros farligste støtter (Socialistisk Information, 4. november 2018)

Privilege versus democracy in Brazil. By Alfredo Saad-Filho (Jacobin, October 27, 2018). “Jair Bolsonaro represents the rise of an authoritarian neoliberalism in Brazil and across the world. If he’s elected president, Brazilian democracy could collapse.” Also online with the title: Brazil: the collapse of democracy? (Socialist Project/The Bullet, October 27, 2018).

Is Bolsonaro a neofascist? (SocialistWorker.org, October 24, 2018). “Here, we publish an assessment of Bolsonaro and the threat he represents by Brazilian Marxist Valério Arcary, who is a leading member of Resistência, a revolutionary socialist current inside the Party for Socialism and Freedom (PSOL).”

The Bolsonaro effect. By Rosana Pinheiro-Machado and Lucia Mury Scalco (Jacobin, October 4, 2018). “What it means that a far-right fascist sympathizer is a leading candidate in Brazil’s presidential election this Sunday.”

Se også:

What’s left in Latin America? By Jenny Pearce (Red Pepper, October 30, 2018). “Once swept by a ‘pink tide’, the continent is now seeing the rise of authoritarian politics. What lessons are to be learnt from the varied left experiences?”

Latin America’s right-wing turn. By Pablo Vivanco (Jacobin, October 27, 2018). “The far right is on the rise not only in Brazil but across Latin America — driven by the middle class that left-wing governments helped create.”

The retreat of the pink tide in Latin America: Interview with Jeffery R. Webber (International Socialist Review, Issue 110, Fall 2018). “He spoke with ISO editorial board member Phil Gasper on April 5, the morning after the Brazilian Supreme Court voted to imprison the country’s former president, Lula da Silva.”

Brazil: Neoliberalism versus Democracy. By Orlando Hill (Counterfire, April 5, 2018). Review of Alfredo Saad-Filho and Lecio Morais’ book (Pluto Press, 2018, 237 p.): “Saad-Filho and Morais use this Marxist understanding of history to gain an insight into Brazil’s political transition from dictatorship to democracy, and the economic transition from an import-substituting industrialisation policy (ISI) to neoliberalism.”

Assessing the pink tide. By Jeffery R. Webber (Jacobin, April 11, 2017). “Pink Tide governments delivered much-needed reforms. But they also defanged the movements that brought them to power.”

Latin America: a conservative restoration? By Marc Becker (Against the Current, Issue 188, May-June 2017). “After a decade of the left’s near-hegemonic control over government structures throughout Latin America, previously discredited conservative politicians who favor a return to the capitalist neoliberal polices of privatization and austerity are staging a comeback.”

Crisis in Brazil. By Perry Anderson (London Review of Books, Vol.38, No.8, 21 April 2016). “Dilma Rousseff’s … Workers’ Party, which had long enjoyed by far the highest level of approval in Brazil, became the most unpopular party in the country.” Svensk udgave: Kris i Brasilien (pdf) (Marxistarkiv.se, 1. maj 2016).

An anarchist’s perspective of the Yellow Vests (Anarchist Black Cross Gothenburg, December 12, 2018) . “Sorry to all those who are still in complete denial but the Yellow Vests, in good multiples forms movement, shelter at worst the far right and at best nationalist confusionism.” See also the original french text at Eunomia, with many links and pictures.

The Yellow Vests have shown the power of resistance. By Charlie Kimber (Socialist Worker, Issue 2634, 11 December 2018). “French president Emmanuel Macron’s attempt to break and divide the Yellow Vest movement by making small concessions has spectacularly failed.”

Podcast: “A bonsai de Gaulle” – Sebastian Budgen on Emmanuel Macron and the Yellow Vests movement (SoundCloud, 8 December 2018, 33:47 min.). “We talked about the social composition of the movement, its relationship to established political forces, the heavy handed response of the government, and the absent strategy of the Macron project.”

France: stay on the streets until Macron falls (Counterfire, December 10, 2018). “Danièle Obono, a deputy of La France Insoumise, speaks to Feyzi Ismail about the Yellow Vest movement, the police and the origins of Macron’s crisis.” See also John Mullen: Revolt in France: could Macron be under threat? (ibid., December 2, 2018)

France: the yellow vests, Act IV – turn the movement into a revolution! By Joe Attard and Jorge Martin (In Defence of Marxism, 10 December 2018). “The yellow vest movement entered its “fourth act” this weekend, with another round of radical protests by well over the officially cited 130,000 people (possibly as many as 500,000).”

Can the Yellow Vests speak? By Édouard Louis (Jacobin, 8 December 2018). “France’s elites were quick to condemn the gilets jaunes protesters as stupid and backward. But as novelist Édouard Louis writes, they’re just standing up for their rights.”

Yellow vests: Macron’s fuel tax was no solution to climate chaos (RS21, 4 December 2018). “While the movement of the ‘yellow vests’ (gilets jaunes) has turned into a broader revolt against inequality and Macron’s neoliberal reforms, economist and climate activist Maxime Combes (Attac France) argues that as a way to tackle climate change, the tax is neither fair nor effective.”

What is at stake in the “yellow jacket” mobilization. By Léon Crémieux (International Viewpoint, 27 November 2018). “What is key is to make it democratically structured and convergent with the organizations of the workers’ movement who want to conduct a common struggle, through a general confrontation with the regime.”